


screaming out the window at the stars

by crooked



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-01
Updated: 2010-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crooked/pseuds/crooked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a note arrives from his family, Sirius knows the news is anything but good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	screaming out the window at the stars

**Author's Note:**

> [original post](http://crooked.livejournal.com/239268.html) @ livejournal.

Sirius stares at the owl rapping at his window. It's a black owl, and no-one but his family uses the bloody things. He has no idea what it could possibly mean, but it can't be anything good.

He finally gets up, after the owl taps hard enough at the thin glass to nearly crack it, and he opens the window. The owl looks at him with disdain, if it's possible, and drops a small roll of parchment onto the sill. It moves as if to peck Sirius but thinks better of it, and gives an indignant hoot before flying away.

Sirius picks up the piece of paper and moves back to his couch, flopping down with a heavy sigh. He tries to think of what anyone in his family — former family — would have to say to him, but he draws nothing but blanks.

"Just open it, idiot," he mumbles to himself, and his hands seem to tremble just the slightest bit as he slowly unfurls the tiny scroll.

Sirius doesn't recognize the handwriting, but that's mostly because his eyes stop focussing the moment he reads the few words scribbled onto the parchment:

He sits there, parchment shaking in his hands like a dried leaf clinging to a branch in a stiff wind, and just blinks. He blinks at the parchment until he almost expects it to speak to him, to tell him that it's just a joke that his family decided to play on him. _Ha ha, Sirius, you ran out on us and now we've got you_.

But, no, it says nothing other than those three words that sink to the pit of Sirius' stomach, sending a freezing cold jolt running down his spine. Regulus is dead. _Regulus is dead_. The words ring through his head, over and over, like church bells tolling in a belfry. Sirius eventually stands up, gently curling his fingers around the paper, crumpling it just the tiniest bit, and walks into his bedroom. He grabs the pack of fags from the bedside table and heads back out into the living room.

He's still there, sitting in the frame of the open window, one leg dangling out onto the narrow fire escape, when Remus comes home. Sirius is on his fifth cigarette, but he's not keeping count. He's just staring out into the nighttime sky, the hour lost on him.

"Hey," Remus says softly as he steps up behind Sirius. He wraps his arms around him, but Sirius doesn't react to that. He just blows a curl of smoke out from between his lips. The silence tells him that Remus is frowning, trying to figure out what is going on. Sirius beats him to the question, holding up the parchment.

He hears Remus' soft gasp and feels the immediate tightening of his arms around Sirius' waist. He shuts his eyes for a moment, and the emotions he's been unable to express until then threaten to pour out of him. But Sirius resists, unsure of what it would look like to Remus: he's decried his family for years, declared James his real brother, and said horrible things about Regulus. Death doesn't erase a person's past, he reasons, so there's no rational reason for him to cry. He doesn't have to mourn the loss of his little brother — his first playmate, first best friend (once upon a time) — because he's already lost him once before.

Sirius, of course, doesn't express any of this. He just doesn't protest one bit when Remus squeezes his lanky frame into the space between Sirius and the window frame, hugging him back against his chest. He just lifts the cigarette to his lips and lets the silence permeate the air, saying all of the things he cannot.

Suddenly the stars begin to fall right before their eyes, and Sirius remembers the date. He never was the most devout Catholic (memories of being an altar boy with Regulus, snickering at people nodding off in the pews), but Sirius somehow remembers what they said about these particular meteors: they are the tears of St Lawrence. Sirius almost allows himself a smile as he thinks of the stars shedding tears for the return of one of their own. He almost smiles because it's such a stupid, sappy sentiment that Regulus himself would likely laugh at him for it.

But, more than anything, he almost smiles because the idea gives him some small comfort; almost as much as the arms wrapped tightly around him; almost as much as the soft voice whispering to him that _it's okay to cry, Sirius, he was your brother_.

St Lawrence's tears stop falling a short while later, just as Sirius' begin.


End file.
